D&D 5E Persuade, Intimidate, and Deceive used vs. PCs

[iserith]

Social skills in D&D still don't have a very good system. It was inconsistent and confusing in 3rd edition and it still is in 5th edition.

I don't see anything inconsistent or confusing about social skills in D&D 5e. They're just a mechanic used to resolve uncertainty when particular things are attempted. Where there is no uncertainty, there is no roll. And in my view, there is no uncertainty when it comes to a player's response to an orc trying to intimidate his or her character (or a succubus trying to deceive or a quest-giver trying to persuade...) because in all cases short of magical compulsion, the player determines the response.

 

[Imaculata]

I don't see anything inconsistent or confusing about social skills in D&D 5e. They're just a mechanic used to resolve uncertainty when particular things are attempted. Where there is no uncertainty, there is no roll. And in my view, there is no uncertainty when it comes to a player's response to an orc trying to intimidate his or her character (or a succubus trying to deceive or a quest-giver trying to persuade...) because in all cases short of magical compulsion, the player determines the response.

To me, the inconsistency comes more from the many social skills that are in the system, which tend to overlap with one another. It makes me feel that perhaps they could have all been just one skill to begin with.

 

[iserith]

To me, the inconsistency comes more from the many social skills that are in the system, which tend to overlap with one another. It makes me feel that perhaps they could have all been just one skill to begin with.

Ah, I see. Yes, I think having one Interaction skill would be fine as well. I guess they made different ones to recognize different approaches that may go well with particular archetypes.

D&D 4e had Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate. When WotC published Gamma World, based largely on the D&D 4e engine, they combined those skills into a single skill, Interaction. It worked just fine.

 

[Hriston]

maybe it's just the fact that I'm sick today...but I don't understand you...

I'm describing how my PC would react when confronted with an Orc that obviously doesn't want to fight. It seems like an opportunity to resolve the encounter without combat.

 

[Lanliss]

I think this may be the only case where I have ever disagreed with Iserith, as I saw him(her?) as a paragon of logic and understanding on the WOTC boards. I feel that it would be completely fine to work these abilities into use on a pc. I described a quick thrown together approach on page one, but it could easily be worked better. Also, as may be evident from my approach, I do not believe that an npc succeeding an intimidation/persuasion/deception check means "Your character is cowed/ believes the lie/ does what npc wants you to". I think it means that getting the outcome you want may be a bit more difficult. A guard intimidating you does not mean you are cowed, it just means that you recognize he may be a force to be reckoned with, and may want to change your approach to tricking or convincing him.

 

[Pauln6]

Some players like a role-playing challenge. The key is knowing your players. It's not the sort of thing that you want to do often but then neither is charming your players.

 

[iserith]

I think this may be the only case where I have ever disagreed with Iserith, as I saw him(her?) as a paragon of logic and understanding on the WOTC boards.

Thanks for the kind words.

Also, as may be evident from my approach, I do not believe that an npc succeeding an intimidation/persuasion/deception check means "Your character is cowed/ believes the lie/ does what npc wants you to". I think it means that getting the outcome you want may be a bit more difficult. A guard intimidating you does not mean you are cowed, it just means that you recognize he may be a force to be reckoned with, and may want to change your approach to tricking or convincing him.

A guard trying to intimidate you doesn't mean you're cowed. "You're intimidated" or "The guard intimidates you," however, means you're cowed or afraid and that is where the DM crosses the line for me. This is regardless of the DM then "allowing" me to act as I like after the fact that my character is intimidated is established.

Some players like a role-playing challenge. The key is knowing your players. It's not the sort of thing that you want to do often but then neither is charming your players.

I don't think there's any more challenge in acting as the DM establishes ("intimidated") versus deciding how your character reacts based on the DM's description of the environment. Both involve making decisions as your character might, given a particular context. Where there is disagreement is who gets to say the character is "intimidated." I think that can only be established by that character's player, short of magical compulsion.

 

[Lanliss]

I think this basically amounts to a more Role playing vs. more Roll playing question. Either side is fine for me, but I can understand why some who prefer role playing would go for that.

 

[Hriston]

maybe it's just the fact that I'm sick today...but I don't understand you...

I realize my earlier response was a little terse, so I'll try to explain myself. You said the Orc is being intimidating in an effort to avoid combat. I assume he expresses his desire that I back-off and makes some sort of threat to back this up, which is kind of silly if you think about it. He doesn't want to fight, so he threatens to fight me if I don't comply. It doesn't limit the decisions I can make in the least. If I still want to fight, the Orc will oblige me. If I don't want to fight, then he doesn't either. It seems to me that the ball is in my court, and yet the way you wish to resolve this situation is for the Orc to roll a Charisma check. Does that mean if the Orc hits whatever DC you set, I will have to do what he wants?

I mean, that's how I'd run it if the Orc wanted to intimidate an NPC. Assuming the NPC is hostile to the Orc, a DC 20 Charisma check from the Orc would result in the NPC complying with the Orc's request to not fight him as long as that decision carries no risk for the NPC, i.e. there isn't someone else threatening the NPC with some consequence if s/he doesn't fight the Orc. This makes sense for an NPC because s/he is being run by an impartial DM, so the dice can inform the NPC's decision making, but a player is not impartial with regard to his/her PC. The player is meant to assume the role of the PC and advocate on behalf of his/her character at the table. Placing mechanical constraints on the player in the social pillar, the part of the game that is most about roleplaying, seems to go against this.

Maybe I don't understand you, but I'm sorry you're sick. I hope you feel better.

 

[sunshadow21]

A guard trying to intimidate you doesn't mean you're cowed. "You're intimidated" or "The guard intimidates you," however, means you're cowed or afraid and that is where the DM crosses the line for me. This is regardless of the DM then "allowing" me to act as I like after the fact that my character is intimidated is established.

How is this any different from the player using the exact same skill to make the DM run an NPC a certain way? In neither case is the person using the skill able to fully dictate precisely how the character affected will react. The DM can no more force the player to respond a specific way to the skill being used on their character than a player can force a DM to respond a specific way when a NPC gets intimidated or fails to detect a lie or otherwise be effected by any of the social skills. If either side is expecting complete domination using these skills, disappointment will follow regardless of who is initiating it and who is having to respond. However, players who think that they are always going to have 100% complete control over every single action or reaction of their character when magic and/or combat is not involved is going to be as disappointed as the DM who believes the same about his NPCs and then finds himself dealing with a PC or two that have massive ranks in social skills.

I as a DM will only very rarely completely remove options, and don't usually place the entire outcome of such an encounter on a single dice roll alone, reducing the sting of getting intimidated to a fair degree, but I have no problem making it clear that certain actions will be easier than others given any set of circumstances and dice rolls. There is a definite difference between "trying to intimidate" and "being intimidating" and the responses should be different in both cases; in that particular case, having a rule that imposes a minor, but very real, effect can go a long way towards getting the players to accept the rp challenge as legitimate. I also play Pendragon, where such reactions are not only far more hard coded, but usually have far more drastic results than what most skill checks in D&D will yield, and the role playing in that game is far better than anything I've ever seen in D&D, even with so much of it seemingly created by the external force of the rules and not by the personal desires of the players. This doesn't mean that a DM should automatically expect a PC that was successfully intimidated to automatically respond in one given manner, any more than a player should expect an NPC to react exactly how they wish on a successful roll, but the player of that PC has to understand that rolling dice has consequences, they can be triggered by either side of the DM screen, and bad rolls at the wrong time will certainly make certain options notably harder. If a player is unwilling to accept this, they don't have to use those skills on NPCs, which will reduce the chances of them coming up at all; but if they wish to use them on NPCs regularly, those skills become fair tactics for me to use against them.